Average trip prices?

[luvalwaysMandy]

I'm trying to convince DH that a trip to Disney is a good idea. But he's going to want #'s. We will be staying offsite. So I know the price for a house rental. And we will be driving. (he wont fly) We are a family of 5. DH, Me, DD5, DS3, DD5months.

Is there anyway to figure out an average price without actually 'planning' the trip?

 

[spare+a_pair]

I'll give you our package price - we're a family of 5 9me, DH, and 3 DS's who will be 10, 5, & 5). We are staying on site for 7 days/6 nights, and are driving from TX. Our dates are during Value season (11/29-12/05) at Ft Wilderness Cabins. We chose the Dining plan sinve my 10 year old is a healthy eater. We also want to do several Charecture meals, and for us, we should ocme out ahead on the plan. I also don't want the hassle of cooking if I am on vacation.

Our package cost was $3695
Dining Plan - $851.70 (3 adults @ $39.99/day, 2 children @ $10.99/day)
7 day MYW Tickets w/Hoppers (for all) - $1320
Approx $1520 for hotel rental

Your prices would probably be cheaper than ours since our 10 year old DS counts as an "adult" on the DDP and in ticket prices. Your 5 mo old would get in free, and eat free on the plan.

Honestly, I would just begin putting numbers together. You will have a much clearer picture of how much things cost once you start pricing it out.

 

[daisyduck123]

Your prices would probably be cheaper than ours since our 10 year old DS counts as an "adult" on the DDP and in ticket prices. Your 5 mo old would get in free, and eat free on the plan.

Except they won't be able to use the Dining Plan as the OP stated they'll be staying "offsite".

 

[Mama to Three]

My dh is the same way. We are a family of five and at time of travel the kids will be, 7, 4, and 3.

We are staying off-site for 7 nights and purchasing 7 day MYW tickets without hoppers. We are looking at $3400. That includes everything. Gas, parking, tolls, food, condo supplies, spending money ($700), 2 character meals, stroller rental, etc. I feel like I have saved us a significant amount of money through my planning and research, but I also feel that I haven't skimped. We are having groceries delievered, stroller delivered, and we have 3 ADRs. We will eat most meals at the condo and will pack lunches for the parks. We still plan to get treats in the parks. I hear some sweet treats are not to be missed. You could certainly do it for less than that if you wanted to. I feel like (and hope) that we will be bringing a lot of our spending money back, but its in the budget just in case. Also, you won't have to buy tickets for the baby. My youngest DD will have only been 3 for a few weeks when we go so it stinks to know that going a few weeks earlier could save us $100s... oh well.

Something else to think about... if you do get the greenlight to go, start buying all that extra stuff early. Things like OTC meds, park supplies, etc. That will add up in cost quickly. I also bought our souvie shirts at the local Disney store for $5 each. The kids will get them when we are there. So there are LOTS of ways to make the price tag more bearable.

Good luck!

 

[DawnM]

When are you thinking of going?

We go off season and get better rates.

Condo- $199/wk including taxes
Food- if we are being super frugal we eat all of our own
- if we budget it is usually just for lunch at a counter service place
Dog sitting- we pay $10/day to a teen neighbor
Gas- if prices are around $2/gallon we spend about $200 total
Tickets- this year we have APs, but if we get tickets we pay $155pp

Total, without APs but with 5 day hoppers and 4 vouchers:

around $1,500 including gas, food, lodging, dog sitting, and park tickets.

We are frugal, frugal....because Disney is the parks to us and we want to go as often as possible.

Dawn

 

[cuppycake]

Certainly you could look up the ticket prices online. Just start thinking about all the things you need to put into the budget:

Lodging
Driving (Gas, hotel if you're doing 2 days, meals)
Tickets
Food
Spending Money (drinks, snacks, souvies)
Pet sitting

I'm sure I'm forgetting things!

We are pretty frugal when it comes to doing Disney. We are a family of 4, going during value season (Sept/Oct) during the free dining promotion. We chose Pop Century, 8 nights/7 days, with 7 day MYW w/park hopping tickets. Our total for lodging/food/park tix (free dining plan) is 1836.04. We will be flying and have our tix. (total for 4, $775).

We allow about $100 a day for extras (a couple of beers for DH, an extra Mickey bar, a tshirt for the girls,a few snacks that we order through gardengrocer.com for our room), and this is usually MORE than enough for us....

Grand Total for our budget: just under $3500 (honestly, we'll probably do it for around $3200). So, it really depends on what you want to spend.....it can be done even cheaper than this, for sure!

 

[Wendybird55]

A few places to help you figure out pricing for your trip.

You know the resort pricing as you said.

For tickets prices - the best-priced place I know of is undercovertourist.com.
They sell WDW tickets at discoutned prices. They list all the types of tickets and days and prices.

For Food: If you are staying off site do you plan to eat in your rental or offsite restaurants? For pricing on Disney dining check out allearsnet.com. In the dining section they list menus from sit down and counter service restaurants along with the prices. So you can get a sense of how much it will cost to eat certain meals on property.

Your 4 biggest costs will be:
Travel (you know that)
Lodgining (you know that)
Tickets (undercovertourist.com)
Meals

You will also have to account for parking fees if you're driving to the park every day. I don't know the amount. but I'm sure you can fine it on these boards or allearsnet.

You can save on meals by bringing your own snacks and having some of your meals off site or at your rental. And souveniers are totally at your discretion.

I would figure out the lodging, travel (gas, tolls, etc) and ticket costs which are the easiest. Then you can figure out a budget for food and check the various resources to find out the best way to stay within that budget.

Disney is not a cheap trip, but there are mnay things you can do to help keep the costs down without sacrificing any of the fun.

 

[rangermom]

I can't give you much for our cost, because we are DVC members and AP holders. But I did want to stress that Disney is expensive, but totally worth it. My DH sounds alot like yours. I had been trying to get him to for 10 years, before he finally gave in. Now he is almost as addicted as me, well almost and bought into DVC by the end of our first trip.

Disney really compares to many other vacations price wise. I was just looking at Hershey park in PA today. Hotels and tickets for a 3 day weekend run about the same as if we went to WDW for the same time. And we live in NJ! What I am saying, is that I would not only run numbers for WDW, but also other areas close to you for the same amount of time to have something to compare to. I think you and you husband will be pleasantly suprised.

 

[carj]

Last summer we spent 7 nights at All Star Sports. We spent $3700 for the entire trip including meals, airfare, rental car, gas, souveniers and tickets.
The biggest costs were airfare and hotel- combined $1465, we bought them together so I can't tell you how much each cost.

Tickets were about $800 for our family of 2 kids, 2 adults.
Table service meals were about $350.
Rental car was $168.
Gas was $80
The rest was spent on food and souveniers.

We are planning a trip to Disneyland next month and I have budgeted amounts for the fixed costs of the trip. For example, if I know that we are going to eat at a character meal, that is budgeted. Then I have a separate budget of $100 per day for daily expenses which will include all other food, activity and souveniers. So, we have several days where we will spend more than $100 on food, but I know that ahead of time and it isn't coming out of the $100 a day. I hope that makes sense.

You definitely should consider sharing some meals, I know that with young kids, they seem to want to eat a little bit, but eat often. Then, you won't be wasting so much food. We found that our kids were hungrier at WDW, so they needed to eat often, but couldn't eat a huge meal.

 

[Aliceacc]

Just to give you some info you didn't request:

If you go between 8/16 and 10/3 of this year, you can stay onsite and get free dining. Since your youngest is under 3, you can stay at any resort that says it accomodates 4, and put your daughter into a pack and play. You might find that onsite, with free dining, is a cheaper alternative than staying off site.

My kids are much older, so that isn't an option for us.

We're staying at the Polynesian in early August on the 4/3 deal (for us it turned out to be almost the same price as free dining later in the month) for approximately $4000 (aside from another $1000 in airfare from NYC.) That includes park tickets with parkhoppers, resort, and the meal plan.

 

[laceemouse]

Just to give you some info you didn't request:

If you go between 8/16 and 10/3 of this year, you can stay onsite and get free dining. Since your youngest is under 3, you can stay at any resort that says it accomodates 4, and put your daughter into a pack and play. You might find that onsite, with free dining, is a cheaper alternative than staying off site.

My kids are much older, so that isn't an option for us.

We're staying at the Polynesian in early August on the 4/3 deal (for us it turned out to be almost the same price as free dining later in the month) for approximately $4000 (aside from another $1000 in airfare from NYC.) That includes park tickets with parkhoppers, resort, and the meal plan.

Agree! If you got free dining and stayed at a Value resort you could do it for half of that, especially if you skip the hoppers (not necessary anyway.)
Go to the Disney website and type in your dates during free dining and you will get a free quote. No obligation.

 

[natnelliesmom]

We are a family of 4, traveling from CT. We have traveled to WDW 4 times in the past 2 years. All for 7-8 nights. We have stayed in moderate to Deluxe resorts only and have rented DVC points to make it cheaper for us to have a bigger room, kitchen etc.
We have traveled in Sept, March, November and October. Each trip cost us just over $3800.00 including airfare and souveniers.

We do eat most of our meals at table service places, our girls usually share a meal. You can shave some cost by eating at counter service places and more in your room.

We did the meal plan twice, saw no monetary savings, but do like the convenience.

Check out the budget boards, they have many money saving tips.

I do have to say though... no matter how we work it, the trips end up right about that $3800.00 mark!
-Sarah

 

[cuppycake]

We are a family of 4, traveling from CT. We have traveled to WDW 4 times in the past 2 years. All for 7-8 nights. We have stayed in moderate to Deluxe resorts only and have rented DVC points to make it cheaper for us to have a bigger room, kitchen etc.
We have traveled in Sept, March, November and October. Each trip cost us just over $3800.00 including airfare and souveniers.

We do eat most of our meals at table service places, our girls usually share a meal. You can shave some cost by eating at counter service places and more in your room.

We did the meal plan twice, saw no monetary savings, but do like the convenience.

Check out the budget boards, they have many money saving tips.

I do have to say though... no matter how we work it, the trips end up right about that $3800.00 mark!
-Sarah

WOW! 7 nights at a Deluxe, airfare, park tickets, souvies, AND eating table service for a family of 4 at only $3800!! You must have some great secrets on how you save money! That's incredible!! Good for you